How to start a day to manage all the tasks and be in a good mood for the next 24 hours? Here are three major recommendations on how to begin a day perfectly.
Being low-spirited — a familiar feeling that is frequently called “depression.” You can feel your morale lying on the ground because certain things have happened or, because sometimes, it seems nothing significant happens and nothing can motivate you. But, all that doesn’t automatically mean being depressed. Depression is a real pathology that frequently ignores current adverse events or accidents.
Feeling down is sometimes a natural reaction: it means you are in a situation that is better to be changed, and here, the sense of negativity should be the impulse to accelerate in seeking positive motivation.
Three Relevant Tips to Try Now
So, how do you do when you are in a dark period and want to change your mood and your life positively?
A good day starts in the morning: starting the day in the right way helps to manage the rest of it pleasantly, making you not only more active but also more receptive to seizing favorable opportunities and events.
1. Gratitude
Start the day expressing gratitude — for many, that is a piece of trivial advice. In reality, it works, and science also suggests it. Starting the day by considering the things that make you happy (don’t focus on negative ones) totally changes your point of view.
Maybe you don’t have the dream job, or still haven’t met your soulmate, but you have a roof over your head, and you don’t starve. Maybe you just got out of a badly-ended relationship, but you are still capable of loving and being loved, and it will happen again as it happened before.
Writing a diary of gratitude may help. Briefly write down every little or big thing that you are grateful for is a practice supported by various studies, such as “The Science of Gratitude,” a document written by Summer Allen, of the University of Berkeley, on behalf of the John Templeton Foundation.
The gratitude exercise helps to:
- Make stress management more efficient
- Improve one’s mood and give a sense of positivity
- Lower the levels of cell inflammation
- Strengthen social, sentimental, and work relationships
In short, starting with exercises like keeping a gratitude diary or meditating on the things you are grateful for is certainly a small commitment, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. Maybe at first, it will seem strange, but after a couple of days, you will feel the positive changes in your day. Also, it only takes a few minutes!
2. Tasks that Are Always Easy to Accomplish
A quite common cause of unhappiness is giving ourselves unrealistic goals. As a result, we never achieve those.
Starting and finishing even a small task early in the morning allows the brain to register a feeling of success that motivates us and encourages us to complete more things during the day. The suggestion is to create a circle of small goals accomplished — that will help to embark on more challenging tasks. It is easier at that point to establish a sort of codependence between the satisfaction after having finished something and starting the day, and that will make you want to continue managing your chores.
Examples?
Plan to make your bed at the same time each morning before going out. Or do a squat. A simple squat, what will it be? The important thing is to do it regularly. If you, for example, make 20 of them, you will find a thousand excuses to skip your daily practice. But only one squat? It costs you a lot less time than checking your inbox.
Obviously, after making one squat, maybe you will do more (those can also be push-ups or whatever you want). Still, it is important that you make the commitment to do only one but regular squat, and that will be your first little success of the day.
An alternative choice would be to read a page of a book or write 50 words (less than you may write a day, skipping Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram) of the novel you have been dreaming of writing for years.
In short, simple, realistic, achievable goals are easy to accomplish on an everyday basis.
3. Always Plan an Activity You Enjoy
Find a reason to get out of bed happy because there is something exciting waiting for you. Of course, you may be at that time in your life when you can only see the glass being half empty. But, remember that the other half is always full! In the morning, take a few minutes to find something that will bring you a few minutes of pleasure during the day. It can be a hot bath, a nice breakfast, several nice songs. It is worth waking up 15 minutes earlier and taking a morning pampering.
Consider anything you love and what makes you think, “how nice it will be to … today”. Those are small simple pleasures that help you feel good.
Reminder: Avoid social media and emails as soon as you get up. They don’t help, and sometimes can make you feel worse.
